Unidentified Assailants Kill 10 South of Algerian Capital

An armed group killed 10 people overnight in Ouzera in the Medea region, 80 kilometres (50 miles) south of the Algerian capital.

An armed group killed 10 people overnight in Ouzera in the Medea region, 80 kilometres (50 miles) south of the Algerian capital, security officials said Friday.

"An intense search operation against the authors of this cowardly attack has been launched," a security official said. He did not give further details.

The Armed Islamic Group led by Antar Zouabri is active in Ouzera, which is a dozen kilometres (miles) from the town of Medea.

Medea is in a region known as the "triangle of death" because of deadly attacks there in the mid-199Os blamed on Islamic fundamentalists at the height of an insurgency they have waged since 1992.

In separate violence on Wednesday, two people were killed and two others kidnapped, including a senator, at a fake roadblock in eastern Algeria, the official APS news agency said late Thursday.

The attack took place overnight on Wednesday at Oum Ali near Tebessa, 630 kilometres (390 miles) east of the capital Algiers.

A "terrorist group" -- as officials term Islamic extremists -- killed two people and kidnapped two others, including Mohamed Boudiar, a member of the upper house of Parliament. The four were travelling in two vehicles, APS said.

A fifth person managed to escape.

More than 110 people, among them more than 40 members of Algeria's security apparatus, have been killed by alleged fundamentalists across the country since the beginning of June, according to a toll compiled by authorities and the media.

Violence since the outbreak of the war has claimed more than 100,000 lives, most of them civilian – ALGIERS (AFP)